The Other Side of the Glasses

"Are these your glasses, Harry?" Percy picked them up off the bench in the Ministry break room and frowned at them.

Harry looked up, temporarily blind as he bent to shake snow out of his hair. He shook his scarf out as well and shrugged out of his heavy black coat.

"Yeah. Can I ...?" He put out his hand for the glasses but Percy held on to them.

"These are in an atrocious condition, you realise."

Harry looked self-conscious. "They're old! And, you know, well-loved or whatever."

"But the lenses are scratched."

Harry shifted uncomfortably. With his chilled cheeks and snow-wet hair mussed up, and the heavy coat and scarf still bundled in his arms, he looked about twelve rather than twenty; despite the trainee auror robes.

"Well, they're old," he said. "I've had them since I was seven; Hermione had to keep expanding them for me. And anyway --" he took them back and squinted at them, rubbing the lenses ineffectually against his scarf "-- they're not that bad."

"They're terrible," Percy said, turning to collect the tea he'd left in the break room to steep. "I don't know how you can see during training." He took a sip and raised his eyebrows "And really, that's a rotten excuse. You can't have had the lenses since you were seven."

"Well, I have." Harry shivered. "God, couldn't they warm this place a bit? What did I do with my scarf?"

Percy stared at him. "You haven't had new lenses since you were seven?"

"I just said, didn't I? Oh, honestly, Perce, don't look at me so disapprovingly. You make me feel like I'm back in school."

Percy closed his mouth. "Can you see?" he blurted.

Harry scowled. "The scratches aren't that bad."

Percy continued to stare. Harry brushed a damp feather of hair away from his eyes, self-conscious. "What?"

#

"It's a hex."

Percy 'hm'd to himself, conscious of a small satisfied feeling. He stamped on it.

"A what?" Harry, once again blind without his glasses, blinked up at the Ministry mediwizard. He looked like an owl pulled out into the daylight.

The mediwizard began consulting a chart, turning to make short passes over Harry's head with his wand every now and again. "On your eyes, Mr Potter," he said briskly. He gave Harry a brief raised eyebrow. "Mr Weasley is quite right: if it were regular short-sightedness you would have needed new prescriptions as you grew up. Young eyes change far more rapidly than mature ones. Yours should not have remained static."

"What do you mean, hex?"

The mediwizard frowned at his chart. "Hm? Oh, well, not a hex as such, I suppose. I imagine it was a by-product of the Avada Kedavra in your infancy. An Unforgivable, particularly a deflected one, produces a bit of a backwash of malicious magic."

Harry gaped. "You're saying I'm short-sighted because Voldemort tried to kill me?" His brows drew into a scowl. "He just has to be involved in everything."

"He did seem to have something of an attention complex, yes," the mediwizard agreed, distracted. He gave the glasses back and Harry slipped them on.

The mediwizard bent low over his chart and made incomprehensible notations on it. Harry sat and twisted his tie into unnatural shapes, scowling and presumably brooding on Voldemort's stalker-ish tendencies. Percy took out his personal organizer and began rearranging his appointments.

Eventually the mediwizard looked up. "Well, you'll be pleased to know the hex is easily removed. Could you take off your glasses and turn to face me, Mr Potter?"

"I ... what?" Harry clutched at the frames. The mediwizard took them carefully away, although Harry's fingers clung a little. He laid them down on the bench. Then he gave his wand a brisk flick and an upwards curve.

"Occulum Lavaro!"

Harry flinched.

"There, that ought to do it. Do let me know if you have any more difficulties, Mr Potter."

He reached for the abandoned glasses. Harry's hand snaked out, Seeker-fast, and slipped them in his pocket. "I'll just, um ... yes."

Out in the corridor, Harry flattened his hair against his forehead and gave Percy a hunted look. "I feel naked."

He did look sort of naked, actually; as though he was missing his nose, or something. He looked like a baby owl again, all wide staring eyes and fluffed-up feathers.

Percy had to stop comparing Harry Potter to children and owls. He was fairly sure it wasn't befitting the dignity of a young man well on his way to becoming an auror. Who had also, you know, defeated a Dark Lord and slain a basilisk and so forth.

Also, it was sort of making him want to ruffle Harry's hair.

"I expect you'll get used to it," he said. "People live without glasses all the time. I should think there's a knack to it."

Harry squinted around the hallway -- Percy rather thought he was trying to will it to retreat into comforting fuzziness. Then he sighed and opened his eyes properly.

"Everyone will laugh," he said gloomily.

#

Percy didn't run into Harry around the Ministry for a few days after that. He heard quite a bit about him, though. It rather seemed as though a sizable proportion of female Ministry employees had no interest in discussing anything other than the discovery that Harry Potter, without his glasses, had green eyes. They were, apparently, really very green.

They also said that he was scowling a lot.

After three days Percy decided to check in and see how he was adjusting.

He Apparated onto the landing outside Harry's flat after work. Harry opened the door in jeans, a jumper and rumpled brown dressing gown. And his glasses, perched low on his nose. He pushed them up self-consciously and invited Percy in.

Percy sat in a kitchen chair while Harry made tea.

"What's happened to your eyes?"

"Oh. A, er ... relapse."

Percy leaned closer, squinting. "You're wearing the empty frames, aren't you?"

Harry blushed.

#

"It's just," he said, flooing directly into Percy's flat a week later, "that I'm used to the glasses. I feel like an idiot without them."

Percy yelped as he spilled tea into his lap.

"Oh, sorry. Did I startle you?"

He flopped onto the couch next to Percy without waiting for an answer. "Did you know I squint all the time? I don't need to, but I do it anyway. And I walk into doors and things. Even though I can see them, they sort of ... sneak up on me."

Percy imagined doors tiptoeing around the Ministry, leaping from shadowed corners.

"Oh?" He busied himself with his tea.

"The first training session after I lost my glasses," Harry said darkly, "I walked into the sparring room and Malfoy laughed so hard he fell into Seamus' lap. Now he squints and pretends to walk into things whenever he sees me."

He toed off his shoes and drew his knees up against his chest.

Percy looked at him. He looked miserable.

"Do you want to borrow my glasses?"

Harry brightened.

"Ta, Perce." He reached over and snagged them off Percy's nose, then stretched and kissed the corner of his mouth.

He settled back against the couch and slipped them on, suddenly relaxed as a cat.

Now neither of them could see. It was ridiculous. Percy couldn't care.